1. You have been hired by a web site design, production and hosting company whose new animated web site designs are attracting a lot of attention and many customers. Currently employees are organized into different functions such as hardware, software design, graphic art and web site hosting as well as functions such as marketing and human resources. Each function takes its turn to work on a new project from initial customer request to final online web site hosting.
The problem the company is experiencing is that it typically takes one year from the initial idea stage to the time a web site is up and running; the company wants to shorten this time by half to protect and expand its market niche. In talking to other managers, you discover that they believe the company's current functional structure is the source of the problem - it is not allowing employees to develop web sites fast enough to satisfy customer's demands. They want you to design a better structure.
a. Discuss ways in which you can improve the way the current functional structure operates to speed website development.
b. Discuss the pros and cons of moving to a (a) multidivisional, (b) matrix, and (c) product-team structure to reduce website development time. c. Which of these structures do you think is most appropriate and why?
2. How would you go about helping managers develop a culture to promote high team performance?